For all of those ready to cite the Pentagon Papers as a reason Assange shouldn't be charged - note that the Pentagon Papers were not solicited, whereas Assange (acting through Wikileaks) is being accused of soliciting classified information.

Throwing everything at him sounds like an ok idea from our criminal justice system if the goal is to lock him up, or get him to plea, but it also seems like a decent way for him to get a little more public sympathy.

All the more reason for us to send him to Sweden. These crimes were never committed when he was in the US or even in the US. Who the fuck does Trump imagine he is ? World policeman ?

An individual does not need to be present in, a resident of, or a citizen of a country to commit a crime in that country. This isn't anything revolutionary or unique to American law. It's quite well established international law.

Say what you want. These indictments go to the heart of the U.S. case against Julian Assange: that he knowingly and recklessly sought and published information that jeopardized the lives and families of U.S. human intelligence assets.

Would hate to be Assange right about now: loathed by republicans, loathed by democrats; hated by conservatives, hated by liberals. Assange took a potentially good thing, and fucked it up so bad that he ended up being public enemy #1.

Well, there's still Pamela Anderson standing by his side ... so I guess its not all doom and gloom!

Would hate to be Assange right about now: loathed by republicans, loathed by democrats; hated by conservatives, hated by liberals. Assange took a potentially good thing, and fucked it up so bad that he ended up being public enemy #1.

Well, there's still Pamela Anderson standing by his side ... so I guess its not all doom and gloom!

This is following the authoritarian handbook pretty closely. Find a character that is disliked by the general public, charge him with crimes and hope to set precedent. Then use that precedent for all sorts of fun in the future.

This is following the authoritarian handbook pretty closely. Find a character that is disliked by the general public, charge him with crimes and hope to set precedent. Then use that precedent for all sorts of fun in the future.

Authoritarians as a rule don't much care about judicial precedents, because they don't bother imposing their will via the courts.

That’s the usual requirement for extradition — that the act is illegal under local law, but the foreign court is the proper jurisdiction.

EDIT: (a) I’m talking about today’s news indictment, not last month’s hacking charges which quite likely can lead to extradition; (b) snippets on the next page indicate that indeed, the UK won’t extradite based on “political crimes” including treason and espionnage.

Actually, I think at this point, it's more in Assange's interest to be extradited to the US for his alleged espionage and hacking offences.

Look at it this way, if he goes to the US, it will be an important case around the 1st Amendment, the authority of the US to enforce its laws outside its borders, the right to know, and a tonne of other stuff that he can paint himself as a hero for, regardless of the outcome. In terms of outcome, I suspect the court would eventually find in his favour, and even if it doesn't, I expect he'll do less time than Chelsea Manning has. (Under a year, minimum security.) A conviction also lets him play the martyr a bit more, gets his fanbase worked up.

If he goes to Sweden, he's just another sex offender. If he goes to jail, he goes to jail as a rapist, and he's on an offenders register. He will be remembered as "That guy who did that hacking, but also raped a woman." He'll try to spin it as being persecution by allies of the US for the other thing, but it's still just a rape conviction. That will probably mean hard (or at least harder) time.

Anyway, I think Julian secretly wants to go to the US instead of Sweden, and possibly has all along, so he can play the hero, instead of the creep.

So who paid for the fancy signs the 'protesters' are displaying? Somebody with deep pockets that has an agenda. Not your tie-died hippy 'grass roots' social justice concerned citizen group of 'just folks'.

All the more reason for us to send him to Sweden. These crimes were never committed when he was in the US or even in the US. Who the fuck does Trump imagine he is ? World policeman ?

An individual does not need to be present in, a resident of, or a citizen of a country to commit a crime in that country. This isn't anything revolutionary or unique to American law. It's quite well established international law.

If you target property or persons present in a country, then yes you've potentially committed a crime against that country, even though you were not physically present in that country then or ever. You're generally only subject to extradition to a country if there is "dual criminality" -- the action would be criminal under the laws of the requesting country and the extraditing country -- but extraterritorial jurisdiction is claimed by a host of countries besides the U.S.

So who paid for the fancy signs the 'protesters' are displaying? Somebody with deep pockets that has an agenda. Not your tie-died hippy 'grass roots' social justice concerned citizen group of 'just folks'.

You mean that 20 bucks sign hold by a person? Or 50 cents one if they made a hundred.

Would hate to be Assange right about now: loathed by republicans, loathed by democrats; hated by conservatives, hated by liberals. Assange took a potentially good thing, and fucked it up so bad that he ended up being public enemy #1.

Well, there's still Pamela Anderson standing by his side ... so I guess its not all doom and gloom!

So who paid for the fancy signs the 'protesters' are displaying? Somebody with deep pockets that has an agenda. Not your tie-died hippy 'grass roots' social justice concerned citizen group of 'just folks'.

You mean that 20 bucks sign hold by a person? Or 50 cents one if they made a hundred.

They are professionally made. Somebody paid for them. Somebody with an agenda.

That’s the usual requirement for extradition — that the act is illegal under local law, but the foreign court is the proper jurisdiction.

As a private citizen hacking computers? Yes. The fact that the computers were U.S. government property rather than private sector property does not change anything. Also dual criminality requires that there be a similar law in both jurisdictions, not an identical one. Is it illegal under British law to spy on Britain? That's a rhetorical question. It is, loosely speaking.

So who paid for the fancy signs the 'protesters' are displaying? Somebody with deep pockets that has an agenda. Not your tie-died hippy 'grass roots' social justice concerned citizen group of 'just folks'.

I don't think there's any need to put any sort of conspiracy on that. Julian has a Reality Distortion Field just as effective as Steve Jobs did. People are still buying the shit he's selling.

Stupid DOJ showing their hand before they get their hands on Assange, because with these spying/espionage charges carry the threat of execution neither the UK nor Sweden will extradite him. Should have just let him come to the US face the initial charge then, BAM! hit him with the 17 new charges.

Stupid DOJ showing their hand before they get their hands on Assange, because with these spying/espionage charges carry the threat of execution neither the UK nor Sweden will extradite him. Should have just let him come to the US face the initial charge then, BAM! hit him with the 17 new charges.

Again i iterate...

Stupid DOJ.

Except.... when someone is extradited to a country you have to give them a fair chance to leave after their sentence is complete before you can add on more charges.

Stick him through his trial, slap him on the no fly list, wait a month after his release, then arrest him again might work....

Stupid DOJ showing their hand before they get their hands on Assange, because with these spying/espionage charges carry the threat of execution neither the UK nor Sweden will extradite him. Should have just let him come to the US face the initial charge then, BAM! hit him with the 17 new charges.

Again i iterate...

Stupid DOJ.

You don't get the hide the ball like that when operating under diplomatically negotiated extradition treaties. A precondition of any extradition arrangement with the U.K. would be no subsequent prosecution under threat of the death penalty for any prior acts. That's before you even begin to consider the Rule of Specialty.

Stupid DOJ showing their hand before they get their hands on Assange, because with these spying/espionage charges carry the threat of execution neither the UK nor Sweden will extradite him. Should have just let him come to the US face the initial charge then, BAM! hit him with the 17 new charges.

Again i iterate...

Stupid DOJ.

Yeah, they can't do that. It would violate the terms of the extradition.

Your comment parses as "it's stupid they didn't try to break the law for this guy". Which, no. That's a good thing, actually. We want the to respect the rule of law.

Ideally, this won't require Sweden's involvement at all. He should be tried in Sweden on the rape charge, returned to UK control (where he was living at the time, IIRC as an Australian citizen, he could come there), serve sentencing for fleeing trial, and then extradited to the US under the US/UK agreement, which would require the US to announce all charges they seek ahead of time.

There was a time (a long time ago) when this guy could've been argued as a typical whistle-blower type but he is far from that at this point. Truly don't give a rip what happens to him though in theory WikiLeaks itself could be salvaged with respectable leadership.

There would need to be a serious reckoning though as to what they are and aren't, what their code of ethics is, which lines are ones they will not cross, etc. They have really muddied themselves with all of this Trump / Russia crap. Whistleblower sites of this kind should be apolitical / not allow themselves to get used for other people's purposes.

They should operate more like a technology rumor site. Receive information, vet information, decide if: a) it's important, something that can right some type of wrong that the public doesn't know; b) it's accurate; c) they trust the sources and the source's motives; and d) they will publish, and if they do explain what they hoped to achieve and why that was important.

Say what you want. These indictments go to the heart of the U.S. case against Julian Assange: that he knowingly and recklessly sought and published information that jeopardized the lives and families of U.S. human intelligence assets.

Really? Then please give us a body count of all the intelligence assets that perished as a result of Assange's leaks.

ConclusionsBeyond expected rates, most mortality increases in Iraq can be attributed to direct violence, but about a third are attributable to indirect causes (such as from failures of health, sanitation, transportation, communication, and other systems). Approximately a half million deaths in Iraq could be attributable to the war.

Side note: I wonder if the new charges are an attempt to have a reason for the US to "pull" their initial extradition request. If they do pull it (and then add the additional charges), then Sweden (and the associated rape charge) would have first priority for extradition. This could be a simple tactic to set up the order of charges that the prosecutors (from all involved countries) probably want.

Stupid DOJ showing their hand before they get their hands on Assange, because with these spying/espionage charges carry the threat of execution neither the UK nor Sweden will extradite him. Should have just let him come to the US face the initial charge then, BAM! hit him with the 17 new charges.

Again i reiterate...

Stupid DOJ.

1) The rule of specialty means that they have to show their hand.2) Extradition for capital crimes is possible with an undertaking by the US to take the death penalty off the table3) These additional charges don't carry the death penalty, as the article itself says Each of the 17 counts carries a potential prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Though having said all that, these charges seem to be a dead letter. Neither the UK nor Swedish extradition agreements cover 'political crimes' and the courts are likely to rule espionage to be just that.

Stupid DOJ showing their hand before they get their hands on Assange, because with these spying/espionage charges carry the threat of execution neither the UK nor Sweden will extradite him. Should have just let him come to the US face the initial charge then, BAM! hit him with the 17 new charges.

Again i iterate...

Stupid DOJ.

You don't get the hide the ball like that when operating under diplomatically negotiated extradition treaties. A precondition of any extradition arrangement with the U.K. would be no subsequent prosecution under threat of the death penalty for any prior acts. That's before you even begin to consider the Rule of Specialty.

So the DOJ couldn't pull off such shenanigans such as a Bait and Switch(?) as i described above?

All the more reason for us to send him to Sweden. These crimes were never committed when he was in the US or even in the US. Who the fuck does Trump imagine he is ? World policeman ?

An individual does not need to be present in, a resident of, or a citizen of a country to commit a crime in that country. This isn't anything revolutionary or unique to American law. It's quite well established international law.

This is wrong. General rule is that you do need to be inside a country EEZ when a crime is committed to be charged by that country law. If not, it would be chaos on the international level.

The internet has made this a slightly more difficult to deal with since hardware can be located inside the U.S and a person can be located in the deep ocean and commit a crime on that hardware in the U.S.

As for Wikileaks and Julian Assange, they have both been compromised by Russia.

Stupid DOJ showing their hand before they get their hands on Assange, because with these spying/espionage charges carry the threat of execution neither the UK nor Sweden will extradite him. Should have just let him come to the US face the initial charge then, BAM! hit him with the 17 new charges.

Again i iterate...

Stupid DOJ.

You don't get the hide the ball like that when operating under diplomatically negotiated extradition treaties. A precondition of any extradition arrangement with the U.K. would be no subsequent prosecution under threat of the death penalty for any prior acts. That's before you even begin to consider the Rule of Specialty.

So the DOJ couldn't pull off such shenanigans such as a Bait and Switch(?) as i described above?

No - they couldn't - the UK would be obliged to complain, and the US federal courts would be legally obliged to enforce the terms of the extradition treaty.

Neither the UK nor Swedish extradition agreements cover 'political crimes' and the courts are likely to rule espionage to be just that.

I've heard that's true of Sweden, but this is the first time I've seen someone claim the same of the UK. I'm not an expert in UK law by any means, but something doesn't "feel" right about this claim, though I'm happy to be proven wrong if my understanding of the existing extradition treaty is off.